Word: toads
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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National Handwriting Day passed last month without parades. But the occasion may deserve to be celebrated, belatedly, with an updating of a part of The Wind in the Willows, a new chapter in the life of Toad of Toad Hall...
...Toad gave up pen and pencil years ago, when he discovered the Smith-Corona manual portable typewriter. Toad loved his Smith-Corona. He played upon it like a flamboyant pianist. Now he massaged the keyboard tenderly through a quiet phrase, now he banged it operatically, thundering along to the chinging bell at the end of the line, where his left arm would abruptly fire into midair with a flourish and fling home the carriage return...
...with director Ed Howard, conjure up the local color with their hilarious sketches: there's Bertha Bumiller, head of the local Smut-Snatching Society, in her green poly suit and orange bouffant wig; Petie Fiske, the woebegone rep from the Greater Tuna Humane Society and his homeless ducks; the toad-voiced chainsmoking Deedee Snavelly; the Rev. Spikes and his "remember the Alamo!" eulogies...
...tragedy. Pondering on what it would be like to be Menelaus, Thersites remarks "to be an ass, were nothing, be is both ass and ox; to be an ox, were nothing, he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule a cat, a finch, a toad, a lizzard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a toe. I would not care, but to be Menelaus, I woud conspire against destiny." Scratching her head, pulling at her suit of rags and slobbering over a bottle of brew, Fasolino's Thersites is convulsive. Excellently staged by Evett, Faselino...
Despite the kiss of the beautiful political princess, the toad remains a toad...